7 Ways We Could Tell That AP Tweet was a Fake

On Tuesday the twitter feed of the Associated Press was hacked, and a fake tweet about President Obama being injured in an explosion at the White House was sent out. The AP quickly took down the account and announced that the tweet was false, but for a full two minutes, hearts beat faster, jaws dropped, and the stock market tumbled.

Any eagle-eyed editor, however, could tell from the form of the tweet that something was not quite right. Let's take a red pen to it and see.

1. A lack of All Caps

In AP tweets about breaking news, "breaking" is always in all caps.

2. An Errant Capital

There is no good reason for "explosions" to be capitalized here.

3. Clause Issues

Since a full independent clause follows the "and," there should be a comma before it. It's also strange that the clause before the "and" has no verb. The AP does sometimes use verbless clauses in its tweets, but to join a verbless clause to a complete sentence in this way is very strange. Here's how the AP usually does this kind of thing:

Two complete sentences should be joined with a semicolon.

4. "Barack Obama" isn't AP Style

It is AP style to write "President Obama." They may occasionally use "President Barack Obama" or "Obama," but never "Barack Obama."

5. That missing period

There should be a period here or a colon followed by a link to a story. During breaking news, AP tweets do sometimes leave off the final period, but add this to all the other mistakes, and it looks very suspicious.

6. It came from the web

AP tweets are sent through the social media service Social Flow. The fake tweet was sent via the web.

7. Says Who?

When something happens that thousands of people witness, like an earthquake, you might get a report that just tells you it's happening. But something that happens inside a building? Inside the White House? For that, you're definitely going to need an "officials say." "Officials say" or "police say" is even more necessary in cases where injuries are reported.

Meanwhile, the parody account @FakeAPStylebook took advantage of the situation to promote their own style advice:

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Also on Mental Floss:

DID YOU KNOW? Marlon Brando hated memorizing lines so much that he posted cue cards everywhere to help him get through scenes.
He even asked for lines to be written on an actress's posterior. (That request was denied.)